The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1887-02-09
in the mountains-where -rye-bcen
sick SO lony-thera's his face fioatin'


sick SO lon'y-there's his face hoatin'
in the shadows, and is
hers-and there's his again! He never
was-quite-so-still-a that before!
It's SO hot here in Mexico-Oh! wish
Icould get out on the mountain-side
and sit by a spring under the trees
and-drink = water = out-of -a-big
leaf again! Oh! I'm-so-dry! my
tongues - all = covered - with
dust! suffered I've = sui
fered-so Won't-Gonzelack-ever yer
come with-tbe - water?' and the
CHASTITY figure began to writhe and
struggle to get up. The bigpoliceman
shook like leaf and tried to hold him
down, but the clamny fingers clutched
his; the staring eyes were in his face,
the gasping breath was on his cheek,
and with a yell of terror the pictur-
esque limb of the law tore himself
loose, leaped through the door and
was gone.
John Earring, to whom the hour, the
moment, the language, the scene, were
vivid as lightning, binding him at
times, leaped up and caught the wild
figure and pressed it slowly back upon
the pillow. For moment he held the
sick man there, gazing into the deleri-
GUS face, and even in his dark agony,
feeling the mans pulse tluttering feebly
against the inside of his hands where
he grasped the thin, hot wrists. There
lay the man beneath him who had
caused his fathers death, who had
loved his mother and had opened the
grave to her, and who, 0 God! was of
the same blood as that which made
music in the veins Of her who had
crowned his spirit with ]ife's choicest
flower! He had not heard the name,
yet if 1t had been pealed into the cell
by a trumpethe would not have known
more surely that it was Ivyl Snaer;
lvyl Snaer, for whom that other
darker being had shrieked in the
stormy night under the fatal
tree at Openstone. All, how fearfully
they had paid the black penalty! How
thick were deaths tracks upon this
tremor-shaken wreck! How suffering
had burnt and gnawed and eaten him
to the bone! And that other! How
like flight of lightning, memories
crossed him now, Of the book-keeper's
agony in the wood, the consuming
fever that fed upon him, and the dark
burrowing loneliness of his life! And
he had tried to save him at the last, to
succor him in fierce pity from the hal
ter! All, he was ignorant of that other
unspeakably cruel blow then! But did
he not know of the knife that had
parted the white neck of the wronged
and innocent Maun? And even now,
with the awful work of pain and death
and remorse before him, with nature
wreaking her vengeance upon this
fallen breaker of her laws, his heart
was swept with passionate pity. He
had not learned it; God had made him
so, and God in that one touch perhaps
was at His best.
With sickening sense of the deadly
ills that had flowed out from this
mans one sin, and like a family OF
vampires had returned into his bosom
and fastened upon his heart, sucking
its life-blood out, the young man
loosened his hold upon the feeble
wrists and stood up. The other lay
still and rigid, with head thrown back
and eyes set, as if John Earnings gaze
had gone through his delirium into his
life and destroyed it. In moment as
the young man gazed, tremor ran
over the frail wreck, and the chief OF
police came striding in with the
picturesque subordinate. who had just
deserted the dying man, trotting after
him.